'Beagle Bill' Hopes To Help Animals Used In Medical Research

BALTIMORE (WJZ) -- Animals are used in medical research to better human health. A bill pending in Annapolis wants those animals to experience human kindness after the experiments end.

The measure even has a catchy name: The Beagle Bill.

"We're saying in cases where dogs are not needed to be sacrificed because of research, they be given a chance at a loving home," says Emily Hovermale with the Humane Society of the United States. "Don't just euthanize them because it's the convenient thing to do."

The bill is sponsored by Delegate Ben Kramer of Montgomery County, and would require medical labs to place dogs and cats up for adoption if they are judged healthy by the lab's veterinarian.

"They have experienced fear and pain," says Kramer. "Let's just give them a chance to have a little human kindness at the end of the experiment."

This is the fourth year the bill has been put forward. Kramer says institutions like Johns Hopkins have actively lobbied against it.

But in a statement to WJZ, Hopkins says: "We re-home animals that our veterinarians deem healthy enough to adopt out. We have had well established processes to ensure the safe re-homing of our animals for more than 20 years."

According to the Humane Society, six other states have laws on the books similar to "The Beagle Bill."

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